How Baby

My name is Lindsay, and I have a weight problem. And I don’t mean, like, I’m this or that number of pounds overweight; I mean, my constant negative inner monologue is pretty much constantly about my weight, and weight-related things like clothes not fitting, not feeling attractive, not putting effort into nonessential personal grooming, and the overall state of my life where I have neither the time, money, skill, or drive to put toward fixing any of it. My knees are starting to go too, and I can’t pretend it’s not because I’m putting as much strain on them as when I was eight months pregnant.

Take all that, and then throw a layer of ‘you’re hurting the Cause for caring about those things’ guilt and ‘you don’t even have the dedication to fix it’ guilt and ‘you’re setting a terrible example for Momo’ guilt on top, and it’s a multi-dimensional miasma of just generally feeling like crap about myself all the time.

The thing is, I absolutely love and support body positivity. I don’t look at anyone else with the hatred I look at myself. Some people love themselves and their bodies (and they look great!) and I am so happy for them, but I don’t. Not a day – not an hour – goes by without that little demon hissing in my ear. It’s relentless and I feel like I’m being constantly worn down. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even want to go out, because I don’t want to be seen.

And on top of all this is the rational part of me that knows I’m fine, that my perceptions are blown way out of proportion, that my friends honestly don’t care and just want to see me. That part of my internal monologue (dialogue?) was winning for a long time, but it can’t keep up with the insidious lies of the other. I’m just tired of it, and myself, all the time recently, especially ever since I got on the scale and saw my pregnancy weight. It’s like that was the proof that I’d finally lost the battle.

Anyway. It’s not a happy one today! I’m sorry there’s no punchline. But thanks for being on the ride.